Cast: B
Plot: A+
Special Effects/Stunts: B-
Similarity to Comic: B-
Director: Sam Raimi
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, William Dafoe
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page
I consider this to be the father of all modern day superhero movies. Movies like 'The Dark Knight' and 'Iron Man' wouldn't exist if it weren't for the success of 'Spider-Man'. There are definitely things that could have been better, but this movie was a pioneer and deserves respect.
The Good: This movie has a fantastic plot, I know the whole "kid has an accident-then discovers superpowers" plot is overused, but seeing as Spider-Man was among the first to employ it I'm granting an exception. They got that part out the way pretty quickly too and got on with the rest of the movie, which also had an amazing plot line. I like how they created the Green Goblin and Spider-Man at the same time, instead of having the hero form after or because of the villain. It followed the comic books fairly well, except that it doesn't have Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man doesn't need web cartridges, and the final scene is actually based off the scene Gwen Stacy dies, but they use Mary Jane instead and she lives (of course, don't act like I spoiled that).
Most of the cast is pretty good, I liked the actors who played Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and Kirsten Dunst was a great Mary Jane. The actor who made this movie though was J.K. Simmons, whos role as J.J. literally had me rolling on the floor laughing, he was PERFECT. I felt William Dafoe did a great job as the Green Goblin and James Franco had his usual stellar performance.
SOME of the special effects were good, especially for the time, way back in '02. Spider-Man's costume was well done, they used a mix of CGI for the flying shots and real fabric for the acting/fighting shots and you could hardly tell the difference. Finally, I love the themes in this movie: "With great power comes great responsibility" and "No matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay". They transferred over from the comic books well and were well developed throughout the film.
The Bad: The Green Goblin costume. It's that simple. It was almost IMPOSSIBLE to take this movie seriously while watching Spider-Man fight what looked like the Green Rangers lovechild from his dinosaur mistress. Tobey Maguire could have been a stronger actor and he could at least cry like a man instead of the pansy picking schoolgirl he looked like when Uncle Ben gets killed. I know Spider-Man isn't supposed to have a deep intimidating voice like Thor or Batman but come on, Tobey sounded like he was just going through puberty. There were parts of this movie that didn't really make sense, like when Peter Parker gets bitten by the radioactive spider. His hand was swollen to the size of a baseball and he didn't go to the hospital? I guess there are things like that in every movie though. Oh one more bad thing: William Dafoe's topless scene, seriously, cover that up.
The Interesting: I don't understand how some parts of this movie could have amazing special effects and then two seconds later they would use ketchup for blood. It didn't add up, like they blew their entire budget on computer generated effects for Spider-Man and they had no money left for the normal props. At least this movie paved the way for bigger budgets for later superhero movies.
Conclusion: All in all this is a movie that everyone into superheroes needs to see. It has a great storyline, a good cast (and Tobey), and it's everything we dreamed a Spider-Man movie should be when we were kids, but like I said, it's not perfect.
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